A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square

A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square (1939) is one of the great Anglo-American song standards — music by Manning Sherwin (an American songwriter then resident in London), lyrics by Eric Maschwitz (the BBC writer who also gave us These Foolish Things). It was written for the West End revue New Faces and became a wartime favourite, recorded by Vera Lynn, Glenn Miller, Frank Sinatra and almost every major torch-singer since.

Technically the Grade 8 piano arrangement tests three things at concert standard. First, the swung quaver feel sustained over a slow tempo — slow swing is harder than fast swing because every off-beat is exposed. Second, jazz-tinged voicings: the harmony uses sevenths, ninths and altered chords as melodic material, and the top voice must always project. Third, rubato in the standards-jazz idiom — small, line-end ease, never push.

Two pitfalls. First, students play the quavers straight and the song collapses into recital character. Second, the rubato is taken too widely; standards-jazz rubato lives on small line-end eases, not large pulls.

Listening: PD recordings of early standards are now widely available — Vera Lynn's wartime recordings (now PD in many jurisdictions), Glenn Miller orchestra recordings (mostly PD), and selected pre-1955 jazz piano on Musopen. They are the essential reference for the slow-swing standards idiom.